Pages

11/07/2014

Planet in Focus Review: 'The Family Farm'

The Family Farm

(Canada, 72 min.)

Written and directed by Ari Cohen

“There’s not a grocery fairy that waves its wand and
restores the shelves,” says one beleaguered farmer towards the end of Ari
Cohen’s The Family Farm. Family Farm, which screens at Toronto’s
Planet in Focus this weekend, is a down-to-earth portrait of the Canadians who
till the land in order to stock the shelves of their neighbours. Few Canadians
really know how food lands on their tables, for more Canadians probably believe
in the food fairy than think critically about how food actually gets into their
belly. Some probably think that the stork still brings them.

Cohen and company visit several smaller family farms across
the Canada and reveal the alternatives to factory farming and importing food en
masse. The Family Farm lets the
farmers speak for themselves as they demonstrate the work ethic and philosophy
that goes into working the fields, gathering the eggs, and preparing the beef
in smart and sustainable ways. The film avoids bombarding the audience with data,
and it instead makes a thorough appeal that the people who work hardest to
ensure the health of Canadians are arguably some of the most underserved
animals in the food chain.

“Agriculture is slipping away,” another farmer says as The Family Farm introduces various
systematic restrictions, such as marketing brands, cheap alternatives, and
tricky double standards on imports make it harder for farmers to justify their
living. The Family Farm could easily
strengthen its cause and be doubly persuasive by choosing any one of these
variables and tackling it in depth, but the film favours human portraits and
moral/emotional pleas rather than the usual legal/ethical inquiries tackled in
top shelf food docs like Food Inc.
The moralising of Family Farm smartly
avoids the fire and brimstone approach of other eat-healthy docs like, say, Fed Up, and the film instead emphasizes
that the contemporary reality of eating healthy and eating locally simply rests
on a moral judgement. It’s cheaper to eat foreign foods, and there’s pleasure
in have tropical goodies year-round, but a solid supply of food on the table
also entails maintaining a strong supply sustenance nearby. If the squirrels
can do it, then why can’t humans?

Rating: ★★★ (out of ★★★★★)

The Family Farm screens
at Planet in Focus on Saturday, Nov. 8 at 11:00 am at Jackman Hall (AGO).